Emily Dickinson Lexicon
Definition for FAC'UL-TY
FAC'UL-TY, n. [Fr. faculté; L. facultas, from facio, to make.]
- That power of the mind or intellect which enables it to receive, revive or modify perceptions; as, the faculty of seeing, of hearing, of imagining, of remembering, &c.; or in general, the faculties may be called the powers or capacities of the mind. Faculty is properly a power belonging to a living or animal body.
- The power of doing any thing; ability. There is no faculty or power in creatures, which can rightly perform its functions, without the perpetual aid of the Supreme Being. Hooker.
- The power of performing any action, natural, vital or animal. The vital facutly is that by which life is preserved. Quincy.
- Facility of performance; the peculiar skill derived from practice, or practice aided by nature; habitual skill or ability; dexterity; adroitness; knack. One man has a remarkable faculty of telling a story; another of inventing excuses for misconduct; a third, of reasoning; a fourth, of preaching.
- Personal quality; disposition or habit, good or ill. Shak.
- Power; authority. This Duncan / Hath borne his faculties so meek. Shak. [Hardly legitimate.]
- Mechanical power; as, the faculty of the wedge. [Not used, nor legitimate.] Wilkins.
- Natural virtue; efficacy; as, the faculty of simples. [Not used, nor legitimate.] Milton.
- Privilege; a right or power granted to a person by favor or indulgence, to do what by law he may not do; as, the faculty of marrying without the bans being first published, or of ordaining a deacon under age. The archbishop of Canterbury has a court of faculties, for granting such privileges or dispensations. Encyc.
- In colleges, the masters and professors of the several sciences. Johnson. One of the members or departments of a university. In most universities there are four faculties; of arts, including humanity and philosophy; of theology; of medicine; and of law. Encyc. In America, the faculty of a college or university consists of the president, professors and tutors. The faculty of advocates, in Scotland, is a respectable body of lawyers who plead in all causes before the courts of session, justiciary and exchequer. Encyc.
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